Comfort and Joy

We are all about comfort and joy around here, especially during the Christmas season. And that means everything from preparing whatever we want for Christmas Eve dinner, no matter how nontraditional, to letting the only man in our house wear his worn out, out of date, and too short sweat pants when friends come over, without so much as a whining complaint from the mommy of the house. The man loves those darn, comfy sweatpants, and Christmas ain't about clothes, no matter how much I enjoy them. I just can't get into the whole hustle and bustle of a stressed out, over-booked Christmas season. I am celebrating the birth of Christ, for goodness sake, and for me, I can do that much better without deadlines, maxed out credit cards, and exhausted and over-stimulated kids. Now that does not mean we are a bunch of couch potatoes during this season, and it certainly doesn't mean we are perfectly chill at all moments, never giving into stress and material temptation. We just try to stay focused on what really and truly matters, or rather, on what really and truly should matter to us. And this holiday season has been pretty joyous and super comfy. Even when we are learning about insects in our kindergarten class and wondering why our live ants haven't yet arrived, we are doing our best to cherish the moments.

And cherishing the moments during Christmas time usually comes with all sorts of school time festivities. I gotta be honest here and say this is one weakness of mine, remembering to incorporate seasonal celebrations and projects into our curriculum. I have to keep remembering that our curriculum was created to begin any time of year, which means it does not follow seasons, holidays, and all those fun childhood school time festivities found in public and private school settings.......so, it's up to the mamas to plan and follow through with the fun. Here's a little of what my kindergarten gal did to celebrate this holiday season (of course her little sisters also enjoyed the fun of some of these activities):

My daughter completed five days of sharing during her final week before school ended for Christmas break. She came up with one thing to give, share, or do for someone every day. Her sharing activities included donating some of her dolls and stuffed animals to a local charity and making sweet treats as a surprise for daddy. One of her strengths is gift giving and surprising, so she loved this week of sharing.

I also wanted her to have some kind of festive play date or event, something to give her the same kind of fun experience she would have in a classroom setting Christmas party if she attended a large school, so.....we had some friends over to decorate cookies.

Fun, sweet, sugary, and not even messy....not messy because we used snowflake, angel, snowman, and dove cookie cutters, which all make for cookies that can be decorated with all white icing and white sparkled sugar. We aren't afraid of messes around here, but it is nice to find a fun way to avoid food coloring when possible. We ordered pizza, the kids all decorated a plate of cookies, and then we finished off with a viewing of the classic Rudolph movie. Our kids had more wheat flour and sugar than they usually have in a week or maybe even a month, but hey, they had fun and they understand it was a special treat. I think it's so important that kids learn to appreciate special occasions and treats for what they are: special, once in a while gifts or indulgences, things to be thankful for and excited about because you don't see them all day and every day.

And then there is the Christmas and winter decorating. This year I realized that when we are decorating our home, we are also decorating our learning environment, so we made sure to make use of calendars, count down to Christmas displays, and seasonal manipulatives. Our favorite Christmas time addition to our house was a basket in our living room which holds our Christmas and winter storybooks, movies, and music. This helped to decorate our house for the season in a small way, while also reminding us to stop throughout our day and share a book or short movie with each other while the season matched up with the stories.

Add some of our favorite homemade spiced tea into the mix, and we had a pretty great season filled up with bunches of comfort and joy. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

We have all these great plans...

...and then life happens. My goodness, does it happen. We have plans and ideas and schedules and lists. We have homeschool group school days, and we have curriculum to follow, and we have play dates and projects, and children to get from point A to point B and back again. But we also have extended family whom we may want to visit and help out when there's a need, and we have nasty little germs that can cause fevers making their way into our house, and we have all sorts of other things mixing up our days like little girls who for whatever reason need some extra cuddle time or soon-to-be big girls with life lessons to be learned, and teeny little girls with a persistent little wish to be potty trained right away. And so, what happens is: we must choose to put aside lists and schedules (even though this really gets to me if I let it....like a nagging little voice in my head telling me that I need to follow my plans, I really, really need to....), or we push our kids to check off everything we thought we would do at a certain time, meanwhile, they don't get what they need, what is really good for their little hearts. It's a tough thing sometimes, to live in the world of Plan B, and tougher still for me to go into the crazy unknown of Plan C, but when I force myself to take a deep breath, evaluate our current situation, and move on to a new plan, then usually, not always, but usually, everyone wins around here. We see more smiles, more learning, and more growth in our relationships. And that is a little piece of greatness for our family.

So this week we checked off our assignments on our lesson plan, but not all of our songs, and not all of our science experiments. We'll have fun revisiting some of those things later. We added an extra history project in, something that interests my Kindergarten student. It's not part of the curriculum package we purchased, but goodness, she is learning from it like crazy. We had a couple school days, after a spur of the moment road trip, at the kids' great-grandmother's house, sitting in her kitchen with cups of spiced tea and workbooks. And we had some of our lessons on the couch one day, while my Kindergarten girl sat next to me on one side, a piano bench pulled up in front of her for her worksheets and supplies, while my older preschooler cuddled up to my other side, sick with a fever. My Kindergarten girl practiced reading (and using a strong, clear voice) by sitting on a stool in the bathroom, reading a picture book to my two year-old who was sitting on the potty, trying to prove she is done with diapers. We did have school with our friends in our homeschool group twice this last week, and we did have our organized classroom time at home a few times this week, too, but when it didn't happen, we didn't panic. We made it work. I am so proud of my little ones for being adaptable when the time is right for adapting. They are learning to work as a team, and that makes me happy, while being so good for them.

And now as we get back to our routine and to our little homeschool classroom, we are thankful for that space and for the comfort and stability we find there. We love our little blackboard, especially the colored chalk, goodness my kid loves the colored chalk. We are using the board more now to display her current history project and also her reading accomplishments. She just loves checking off her accomplishments and then seeing them up on the board every day. And I bet she will love that even more come Monday, after having a break from the lists and checks. There's nothing like a break from something to give you a renewed excitement for it when it is time to go back to work.

So we are thankful for the last few weeks. God is taking good care of us. We have survived the flu with hardly any symptoms, other than a fever. And while we are trying our best to be a house that shares, we are so thankful to say we haven't been sharing viruses with each other at this point. Praise God!